In 2016 I finished high school. During the long summer following my GCSEs, I joined JD Gyms in Leeds with my friend, Ben. He invited me to join him as he had seen an advert for a deal with the first month free, as the gym was just opening up. I signed up and we went 3 or 4 times a week throughout the summer.
A few weeks later, I was back at school, studying my A-levels. This meant that I had less time to do the things that I enjoy, so I had to make choices between going to the golf club to practice or going to the gym. With winter approaching, I noticed that I was choosing to go to the gym more than I was playing golf. I was starting to enjoy being in the gym and working on my body more than anything else. This is where my passion for fitness began.
For the whole of that winter I was going to the gym 4 or 5 times a week and regularly choosing this over golf. I was starting to see progress like I had never experienced before and I was learning how my body reacted to different kinds of training.
While I was going to the gym regularly throughout my first year of 6th form, I was also studying for my A-level in Physical Education, which helped me to learn more about the body and different forms, methods and types of training. This further fueled my ambition to be working out.
My passion for golf had slightly been out-weighed by my passion for fitness, causing me to spend less time practicing. I was regularly performing below the level I should have been and my progress had plateaued. The lack of progress caused a large reduction in my motivation to be at the golf club, I would much rather be in the gym.
At this point, I had decided that I wanted a career in personal training. I had begun carrying out research about how to get into the fitness industry and which qualifications it would require.
As the summer break came around, I had more time to play golf through the day. But, I found myself leaving earlier than I previously would have so that I could go to the gym instead of practicing.
I started year 13 and I knew that my A-levels had to take priority over anything. I hardly had any time at all to be at the golf club and I was not seeing any progression on the course. I decided that instead of spending 4 hours on the driving range, I would be better off spending 2 hours in the gym.
I was still seeing progression in the gym due to the volume that I was training, but it was not at the rate that it should have been. After doing some research about how to get into the fitness industry, I decided that personal training was not the job for me. I wanted to keep the gym as a happy place and to have it as a job would remove the enjoyment.
While I was looking for a new career path to pursue, my dad found The Golf School which I attended after my A-levels, as a ‘gap year’. Here, my passion for fitness was combined with my passion for golf. I learned how to link the two together.
The first thing that I learnt was the push/pull workouts. With this you can train your whole body with 2 simple weight workouts, push and pull. This meant that I felt less pressure to be in the gym every day as I could train my full body in just 2 days. I could spend more time focusing on building my skill set back up on the golf course, while continuing to see progress in the gym.
The next fitness lesson that I learnt at The Golf School was how to train legs. Previous to this, I didn’t know how to train legs and was never actually taught the correct techniques. This meant that I did not feel any benefits from a legs session which stopped me from wanting to train them.
At college, the S&C coach (Nick) helped me to learn the correct techniques and taught me the push/pull workouts, which helped me to get into the habit of training legs regularly in each workout. I soon saw progress and started to enjoy building up the strength in my legs.
The third lesson I learnt was the importance of stretching and posture training. Through the winter at the golf school, we were hitting between 200-400 golf balls per day as well as training for 2 of the 3 days. This put large amounts of stress on my body, especially in the back. As we all know, use Tiger Woods as an example, the back becomes very delicate as a golfer. I found this out for myself through January and February at TGS when my back bulged up and became extremely sore. Moving my body to hit a golf ball became difficult.
Nick gave me some exercises to improve my posture, bringing my shoulder blades backwards and closer together. Carrying out this plan for just 2 weeks, along with some stretching and foam rollers, removed my back problems and my posture became better than it had ever been before. Continuing to look after my back and posture has allowed me to avoid any issues with my body since and allows me to keep training regularly, both on the golf course and in the gym without issues.
Fitness lesson number 4 at golf college was nutrition. I had never really thought about it prior to The Golf School, a couple of chocolate bars and a bottle of pop would do me!
However, throughout college, we would rate each other on the nutrition and hydration during a round. Whenever I was rated poorly on my nutrition, my performance had deteriorated throughout the round. This showed me the importance of nutrition and made me begin to think more about what I have to eat and drink on the golf course.
I asked Nick for advice on this. He told me that I should be constantly snacking on slow release foods (fruit, sandwiches, nuts, seeds, carbohydrate bars etc.) during the round to avoid peaks and drops in energy and performance. He also had the same advice about hydration and said that I should try to take a sip of my drink after most shots, where possible, to avoid any dips in dehydration as this can cause huge reductions in concentration and performance.
When college finished I was on my own in the gym. This didn’t worry me as I felt that I had learned enough about my body and the human body in my last 3 years that I can manage on my own.
I moved to PureGym at Thorpe Park in Leeds and I have been keeping as fit as possible since. I have begun to move away from weight training and started to train my body to move better and more efficiently using power workouts and circuit training. I am still stretching and performing my posture workout regularly and learning new things about my body and the human body every day. (with help from YouTube)